What should you do if you feel your advisor is being discouraging and negative?

[quickoats]

(This is from another topic "my advisor is pushing but not very helpful")

Now I got totally confused about what my advisor expects from me. Last minute she pushed me to do whatever I could to get things done as quickly as possible; now she's blaming me for doing several things at the same time to facilitate the study and not reporting to her what I was doing and planed to do. 

 

I am thinking maybe I AM doing things wrong. But that's why guidance is so important, especially it's my first time conducting such studies. However, instead of giving academic guidance (not hand-holding), she usually either says "you shouldn't do it" with no positive/constructive suggestion (and with very harsh tones), or  "you should do it" with no further explanations and is more like a commend that I must obey. I should and planed to learn many things from this first experience so that I could do better in my later research, but I feel all I got were negative feedbacks, and it does not only make me frustrated, but also confuses me even more about what academic research and the academic world is like. I'm now desperately wanting to finish this stage as soon as possible and move to my next stage of study, where I know the professor(s) is/are nice to students and the interaction is healthy and equal.

 

I guess I'm more complaining than asking for suggestion here. But I really wish to know how other grad students interact with their advisors. If you feel your advisors are being discouraging and negative, what should you do?

[danieleWrites]

Advisers are under pressure, too. They have to have grades, reports, and blah blah blah all turned in on deadlines. Some of them are well-organized. Some of them are not, which means students get pushed to complete things quickly and, as a result, do worse than they might have otherwise.

Nip it in the bud.

You know that the end of the semester will be coming up soon, and that you have things to accomplish. If you haven't already done so, organize yourself, your time, and your research as much as possible. Do so in a way that you can track. A notebook, an app, google calendar, whatev. Then schedule a meeting with your adviser so that you can fit her expectations into your schedule in a way that works for both of you. This way, you're getting information about what you need to do and when it needs to be done, or what steps you need to take before you consult with her next, well in advance. At the end of the meeting, schedule your next meeting and have a list of things that she wants to see completed by that meeting.

It's impossible for me to diagnose her personality type when it comes to deadlines, but the pushing to get stuff done? It often comes down to someone lacking time and/or research management.